Reviewed by Roberta Mazza, University of Manchester (roberta.mazza@manchester.ac.uk)
The city of Oxyrhynchus has attracted the attention of scholars in early Christian studies since the first archaeological season of Grenfell and Hunt on the site (1896-1897), which, amongst others, brought into light the Greek original of what came to be known about fifty years later as the Gospel of Thomas (P. Oxy. I, 1). From that moment onwards the ancient rubbish heaps of the city have given to us a wide range not only of Christian literature, but also of documents -- such as letters, lists and contracts -- relating to the everyday life of Christians and Christian institutions in that city and its neighbourhood.

"Of about 2,000 Greek ostraca in the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg, about half were published by P. Viereck in 1923 (O. Stras. I). This second volume (O. Stras. II) adds another 100 or so, mostly tax receipts written in Thebes between A.D. 81 and 216. Such texts are often as neglected as they are repetitive, and they take another meaning when their history as objects and as groups of objects is fully understood. Ostraca from the Royal Ontario Museum and the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana are added here to the Strasbourg ones to form three coherent "dossiers". In the first group, ostraca from the district of Ophieon (Luxor) lead to a discussion on the administrative topography of the city of Thebes in the Roman period. Another dossier of texts comes from the personal archive of someone named Psais, son of Senphthoumonthes, allowing us to know a common taxpayer for more than 15 years, with precious information not only about this man or the taxes he paid, but also about the tax collectors of his time. Finally, through several generations, the family of Petekhespokhrates, son of Khabonkhonsis, left for us more than 40 texts, including some in Demotic or with Demotic dockets: this is best explained by the fact that most of these people were priests. The book includes also a prosopography of the Theban praktores argurikon. The texts published here will be of interest both to Greek and Demotic papyrologists and philologists, and also to historians dealing with ancient fiscal history and economics."